The Charts: Once Upon A Time Scores on the Charts, Agents of SHIELD Nearly Shut Out

Tracking the activity on the ratings and social network charts for science fiction and fantasy television shows from the prior week . For the most recent ratings results, be sure to follow the Cancellation Watch column.

The first week with Fall data on the charts, and ABC’s Once Upon A Time was the big winner. Not only did that series have a strong Season 4 debut in the ratings on Sunday, it also made it into all four of the charts that I track here. For the broadcast network Top 25 based on the ratings in the 18-49 demographic, it landed at the Number 13 slot, the highest it has been in quite a while. For the Top 25 based on total viewers, it was at the Number 21 slot. As for the social networks, the Nielsen Twitter Ratings had it at Number 9 and General Sentiment at Number 7. That Frozen crossover has definitely brought a lot of people back to the show in its fourth season. Not so lucky was ABC’s Agents of SHIELD which received little love from the charts for the week. That one was shut out of the Top 25 based on ratings and total viewers and only made an appearance on the General Sentiment charts at the Number 11. Agents of SHIELD was a perennial Top 25 entry in the Nielsen charts last year, but has fallen on hard times during its second season (and I will be looking at that in more detail in Friday’s Cancellation Watch post). Over on FOX, new entry Gotham scored a couple of wins for that network as it made it to the Number 3 spot in the Nielsen Twitter Ratings and Number 17 spot on the Top 25 based on ratings in the demo. That one also made it to Number 2 on the General Sentiment charts. Other Fall genre shows that made it into the charts last week were Person of Interest (CBS) and Resurrection (ABC). As for the cable shows, it was only the Summer holdovers and they only made it to the General Sentiment chart. However, American Horror Story and The Walking Dead will be returning over the next week and a half, so expect to see them here in two weeks.

Here is the full look at chart activity for genre shows for the week of September 22nd thru 28th:

Nielsen Twitter Rankings

Series

Network

Rank

Prior Week

Move -ment

Gotham

FOX

3

n/a

Up

Once Upon A Time

ABC

9

n/a

Up

Broadcast Networks Top 25 – Ratings 18-49

Series

Network

Rank

Prior Week

Move -ment

Viewers (MM)

Prior Week

Once Upon A Time

ABC

13

n/a

Up

3.7

n/a

Gotham

FOX

17

n/a

Up

3.2

n/a

Resurrection

ABC

25

n/a

Up

2.5

n/a

Broadcast Networks Top 25 – Total Viewers

Series

Network

Rank

Prior Week

Move -ment

Viewers (MM)

Prior Week

Person of Interest

CBS

20

n/a

Up

10.6

n/a

Once Upon A Time

ABC

21

n/a

Up

10.2

n/a

Cable Networks Top 25 – Total Viewers

Series

Network

Rank

Prior Week

Move -ment

Viewers (MM)

Prior Week

No Activity for Genre Shows

General Sentiment – Broadcast Networks Top 25

Series

Network

Rank

Prior Week

Move -ment

Gotham

FOX

2

n/a

Up

Once Upon A Time

ABC

7

n/a

Up

Agents of SHIELD

ABC

11

n/a

Up

Under the Dome

CBS

20

14

Down

General Sentiment – Cable Channels Top 25

Series

Network

Rank

Prior Week

Move -ment

Doctor Who

BBCA

1

1

Same

Outlander

Starz

8

8

Same

The Strain

FX

9

11

Up

Witches of East End

Lifetime

18

15

Down

Nielsen Twitter Ratings ranked based on the Unique Audience – The total number of distinct Twitter accounts accruing at least one impression of one or more different Tweets ascribed to a TV episode. More info at this link.

General Sentiment tracks activity across the social networks for shows airing new episodes in Prime Time (start times between 8:00 PM and 10:55 PM EST Monday – Saturday and 7:00 PM and 10:55 PM EST on Sunday). This data collected on seven (7) major broadcast networks and 43 cable television networks. More info at this link.